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Friday, May 31, 2013

When I lived in Kuala Lumpur, I got together once a month
with a lovely group of ladies, ostensibly to play Pokeno. Oh,
don’t get me wrong, we did play, but the best part of the evening was definitely the
potluck meal we shared. We took turns
hosting and if we were playing at your house, you were responsible for the main
course. The rest of us brought
appetizers and side dishes and salads and desserts. I don’t remember who was hosting when Lora
made this lovely salsa but, after that, we hardly ever let her sign up to make anything
else. And, of course, she had to
share the recipe. I made it again a few weeks
ago for my sweet neighbor’s even sweeter daughter’s third birthday
celebration. All the accompanying
parents seemed to love it and even some of the children were digging in, with
the tortilla chips. Its delicious
flavors made me miss my Pokeno ladies so I was grateful for new friends.

Ingredients

2 ripe avocadoes

4 red ripe Roma tomatoes, chopped (Lora says:You can substitute, but make sure they are
quality tomatoes. It makes a difference!)

1 small red onion

1 small red chili pepper or 1 green jalapeño

1 bunch cilantro or fresh coriander

4 oz or 85g feta cheese

1/4 cup or 60ml olive oil

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon salt (I used Maldon flakes.)

Method

Mix your salt, cumin, vinegar and olive oil to make a
dressing in the bottom of a mixing bowl.

Cut the avocados into halves.Remove the seeds and, using the tip of your
knife, cut just down to the peel, going first one direction and then
perpendicular.

Scoop the avocado out
into the bowl and toss lightly with the dressing.

Core and chop the tomatoes.

Share a little with your helper, if he has been a good boy.

He adores tomatoes!

Mince your pepper, removing the seeds if you would prefer your
salsa to be less spicy.

Peel and dice the onion.

Trim the tough stalks off of your bunch of cilantro.Chop the leaves roughly.

Monday, May 27, 2013

A quick question for you, as I pack my bags to fly back to the US (BECAUSE MY FIRST BABY GIRL IS GRADUATING FROM UNIVERSITY!) for reasons that don't seem possible, given that I onlyfeel about 24 myself. Have you ever cooked or baked with coconut oil? This is my first time and I have to admit it reminds me of beaches and Hawaiian Tropic suntanning oil. But in a good way. Combining it with pineapple in these muffins, I am back on my honeymoon in Barbados, sipping piña coladas. While the health-professional jury is still out, it seems that coconut oil does have some benefits. All I can tell you is that it was a great way to add coconut flavor to my muffins, without actually adding more fat in the form of grated coconut, in addition to the usual canola or butter. Which makes me think it might be a good addition to curries as well, instead of coconut milk. What do you think? Coconut oil, yay or nay?

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare a 12-cup muffin tin by greasing or lining with paper muffin cups.

Drain your small can of pineapple and reserve the syrup. Chop the pineapple up with a big knife. Or a small knife. I’m flexible.

Set aside a small pile of pineapple for adding to the muffin tops before baking.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together.

In another bowl, whisk together milk, coconut oil, pineapple syrup, vanilla and eggs.

That's the coconut oil. I don't know what I expected it to look like since bottle
was not see-through but the white surprised me.

Add all the milk mixture to the flour mixture.

Gently fold just until dry ingredients are moistened. Then fold in your small pile of pineapple bits.

Divide your batter relatively evenly between the 12 muffin cups.

Top each cup of batter with a few pieces of the reserved pineapple and sprinkle with a few coconut flakes, if using.

Bake 20-25 minutes or until muffins are golden.

Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes before removing muffins from tin. Cool further on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street, a culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week. Drop Anuradha a quick line to join her on this journey to make the world smile and beat glum Monday mornings week after week. Make sure to go and check out what my fellow bloggers have come up with this week!Plus learn all you ever need to know about muffins, right here at Muffin 101.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

This week the Sunday Supper group is getting ready for summertime fun. Picnics and family reunions in parks or at the beach! What’s a picnic without dessert?

This cake is moist, chocolaty and altogether delicious. I got the recipe many years ago from my friend, Sharon, who is an excellent cook as well as a delightful person with a great sense of humor. She is also from Louisiana, so that explains a lot. I almost always have the ingredients on hand and it's quick to put together. You don't even have to get out your electric mixer (although sometimes I do) because it can be mixed by hand. But the best part of all is that it is baked and frosted and served straight from the pan, so it is easily transported to a picnic or potluck or party. If you want to make your life even easier, bake it in a disposable aluminum pan and you won’t even have anything to bring home to wash up. Because I can assure you, there will be NO CAKE left.

Many thanks to our host for this week’s Sunday Supper, Katy from Happy Baking Days! If you haven’t met her yet, go on over and say howdy. She’s cute and sweet and always shares lovely recipes from her happy kitchen. I know I have at least a few readers who cook and bake gluten-free and Katy can help you out there!

Toast your pecans in a skillet over a medium flame. Shake the pan regularly until the fragrance of toasted nuts tells you they are done. This takes just a few minutes. Chop the pecans roughly and set aside.

Sift together the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda and cinnamon, and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, blend together the two eggs, softened butter, buttermilk, canola, water and vanilla.

Pour your dry ingredients into the wet ones, stirring or beating until you have a smooth, rather thin batter.

Pour into your prepared pan, and bake at 400°F for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

While the cake is baking, prepare the frosting.

Mix the milk and cocoa in a heavy saucepan and stir, stir, stir. I used a whisk because the cocoa sometimes doesn’t want to mix in right away.

Add the butter and, over medium heat, stir until the butter melts.

Remove from heat and gradually stir in the sugar and vanilla until smooth.

Finally, add the pecans.

When the cake is just out of the oven, spread the frosting evenly on the HOT cake.

Enjoy!

My apologies for not taking a photo of the cake being served. I took this along to a ladies lunch and we were too busy eating to remember pictures!

Update: I MADE IT AGAIN. See, I told you it was a favorite. So here's the photo. This time I used Hershey's Dark Special Cocoa (Special Dark Cocoa?) so it was even more fudgey and delicious.

Make sure you check out the links below for more great picnic party ideas!

You can join in
the chat on Twitter too: we’ll tweet throughout the day and share all of our
picnic recipes. Our weekly chat starts at 7 p.m. EST. To join in, just follow the #SundaySupper
hashtag, and remember to include it in your tweets. You can also check out our #SundaySupper Pinterest board for
more delicious recipes and photos.

Cooking for people I love, creating deliciousness out of fresh ingredients, browsing through cookbooks for inspiration, perusing grocery shelves for choice items and writing about my expat life enriched by food. That's what I do here.